Ready To Go Batteries – The Best So Far

As I said, batteries are as boring as backup but batteries are equally essential.

Sometimes, of course, batteries hit the news:

I’ve just read that the United States Administration is banning Nickel Metal Hydride batteries and rechargeable cells on aeroplanes unless they are packed and carried in certain ways as they believe that there is a danger of fire, in particular, from low grade batteries made by companies that perhaps don’t have the highest manufacturing standards.

So that’s something to be concerned about because one of the great joys of digital photography is that you no longer have quite the same problems in going through airports and airport scanners.

The days when you tried to pack your films in lead lined bags, or tried to persuade recalcitrant and overworked airport security staff to let you take your films through in your hand luggage without going through the scanners – those days are gone.

But it seems in these very security conscious times in the travel business, that we now have battery problems.

But back to the batteries themselves as we’re talking about them.

The main problems regarding the types of rechargeable cells that we’ve talked about is that they might have memory problems, sometimes have environmental problems and also that they have a discharge problem: That is that after you charge them they quite quickly lose their power.

Another factor is that if you forget to charge them or wait until the last minute then it’s too late because you can’t immediately charge them even with the quickest chargers.

So, I’m going to come to the last type of cell for the moment which is based on Nickel Metal Hydride technology and is sometimes called a Ready to Use cell.

These types of cells are provided by a few companies and they have the following characteristics.

When you buy them they are already charged so you can use them straight away

When you charge them they keep most of their charge for a long time.

My photo show the brands I have used and I have found them to be the best type of cell for photographic purposes.

That’s it for the moment on cells. If you found this post interesting please comment or bookmark.

Next post I’m beginning to respond to previous comments and emails about macro photography so bye till then.

Hi George – all three of the ready to go batteries should work with the same charger but you might need an up to date one. The whole question of battery chargers is a minefield as there are so many at different price points with different features. Are they widely available? I think so – I buy them from my local supermarket here in Sofia and all the camera shops stock at least one brand. Hope this helps and thanks for your input, John